Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Lab Strips DNA Scientist Watson Of His Last Remaining Honorary Positions Following Controversy Over Remarks On Race
The Associated Press: Lab Revokes Honors For Controversial DNA Scientist Watson
James Watson, the Nobel Prize-winning DNA scientist who lost his job in 2007 for expressing racist views, was stripped of several honorary titles Friday by the New York lab he once headed. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory said it was reacting to Watson's remarks in a television documentary aired earlier this month. (Ritter, 1/11)
The New York Times: Lab Severs Ties With James Watson, Citing ‘Unsubstantiated And Reckless’ Remarks
Dr. Watson, one of the most influential scientists of the 20th century, had apologized after making similar comments to a British newspaper in 2007. At the time, he was forced to retire from his job as chancellor at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island, but he has retained his office there, as well as the titles of chancellor emeritus, Oliver R. Grace professor emeritus and honorary trustee. The graduate school of biological sciences at the research center is named for Dr. Watson, and the laboratory held a 90th birthday party for him last spring. (Harmon, 1/11)
Stat: Lab Strips James Watson Of Final Roles After Continuing Racist Remarks
The director of the documentary, which aired last week as part of the PBS “American Masters” series, asked Watson if he had changed his mind about his previous statements and writings on race and intelligence, which boil down to the claim that Africans and people of African descent have lower intelligence than other groups because of genetics. Watson declined that lifeline. (Begley, 1/11)
In other news —
The New York Times: Memorial Sloan Kettering Curbs Executives’ Ties To Industry After Conflict-Of-Interest Scandals
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, one of the world’s leading research institutions, announced on Friday that it would bar its top executives from serving on corporate boards of drug and health care companies that, in some cases, had paid them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Hospital officials also told the center’s staff that the executive board had made permanent a series of reforms designed to limit the ways in which its top executives and leading researchers could profit from work developed at Memorial Sloan Kettering, a nonprofit with a broad social mission that admits about 23,500 cancer patients each year. (Thomas and Ornstein, 1/11)
